The Power of the Universe is Within Us

We humans have discovered, invented, and created tremendous works of medicine, technology, and art. One night in Japan, my husband was standing on a hillside when a Shinkansen train shot across, slicing the darkness with thin blue electricity. “How amazing and awesome humans are!” he thought. Shortly after his comment, a massive bolt of lightning cracked down from the sky, lighting up the entire valley as if it were daytime. He thought, “Wow, ok, now THAT’s power! We can’t even begin to compare.”

Sometimes when life overwhelms us, it helps to take a step back…wayyyy back, and see just how small we are in the universe. Even our Earth itself is just a speck of dust in the vastness of space. Yet small as we are, when we realize we are a part of this great universe, it opens up our hearts and minds to be filled with its energy. As Master Yoda tells Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, “Size matters not,” and “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.” I also like how Albert Einstein’s definition of a human includes compassion.

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Albert Einstein

If I were to describe what lights up people’s hearts and lives and fosters hope, they are Compassion and Love. Darkness that destroys people’s hopes and lives are Hatred/Rage and Indifference. We have the power to nurture or destroy ourselves and each other.

How will you use the power within you?